0% tech strategy-- minimum effective difficulty

[Torakami_Bltzen]

Just a quick and painless question. I'm planning to start a huge map, 12 civ game on either warlord or regent, havn't decided yet. What i'm wondering is would the strategy of setting science to zero and getting them from ai and goodie huts effective on this low of a difficulty?

 

[Aggie]

If you want to end the game in 2050 with a histograph win, 0%tech on warlord is the way to go.

Seriously: this strategy is made for emperor/deity level. On lower levels (up to monarch) you can out-research the AI and be the tech broker. Imho the best strategy is to get rich from trading tech.

That said: of course it's possible. It takes very long, but it's possible.

 

[Woody]

Dont set science at zero, either use one specialist as a scientest or set science at 10%. The price the AI charges you is partly figured by how much of the tech you have already researched yourself, even a little bit of your own research can lower your costs drasticly.

 

[DaveMcW]

If you research 39 beakers of a tech that costs 10,000 beakers the AI will still charge you 9,961 gold, even if it took you 39 turns to get that far.

 

[Torakami_Bltzen]

so on lower difficulties it's best to go all out on research and sell it to the ai?

 

[Cartouche Bee]

Originally posted by Torakami_Bltzen
so on lower difficulties it's best to go all out on research and sell it to the ai?

On lower difficulties it's best to go all out on research and cream the AI with superior technology!

 

[Hygro]

yeah, even on emperor (which I still have simply stopped playing my games before that late middle ages--so I'm not expert) I was able to mostly keep up. On warlord you should not try the 0% strat as it will slow you down massively.

 

[Arutha]

Dunno about Warlord (never played below Regent), but I did play one game on Regent with the Carthaginians where I didn't research a single tech. It worked greatly. Sure, I never had a tech lead, but I had such massive amounts of gold it wasn't funny.

So it may not be the most effective strategy on lower levels, but it works.

 

[Phantom Lord]

Depends on the circumstances. The more AI civs there are in the game, the better it works. IMHO it can work on regent if there are at least 3 strong AI civs, which can happen in a game with 10 civs and archipelago or continental setting on a large map.

Let the AI build the tech related wonders and get yourself the economy wonders. Playing a commercial civ helps too.

Problems may arise if the AI doesn't sell techs the usual way or simply charges too high prices like in DMcW's example, but with a strong economy you can steal techs via espionage about every 4 turns (for 4000- 5000 gp each, suggesting your income is >1000 gpt).